Enterprise IT Watch Blog » Interop Las Vegas 2010

Too many flavors might slow desktop virtualization

Michael Morisy — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:56:06 +0000

Too many desktop virtualization platform options, deployment choices and licensing paths might stimmying desktop virtualization. As CIO’s Kevin Fogarty reports:

Desktop virtualization now comes in so many varieties that even vendors confuse terms referring to the flavors.

Market leader Citrix Systems, now working hard to expand virtual desktops into roles that the company hasn’t traditionally filled, rolled out a version of its Xen Desktop solution last fall that allowed customers to choose any of six major delivery methods.

Competitor VMware is close behind, followed by Microsoft and a host of add-on vendors and open-source integrators offering similar approaches, bolstered from the other end of the client-hardware spectrum by thin- or zero-client virtualization products such as Pano Logic or NComputing.

Add to that the potential to stream apps to end users from external SaaS providers, access all or part of a virtual desktop from the cloud via platform-as-a-service, nestle a secure VM within an otherwise insecure personally owned iPad, smartphone or other gadget—and the choice gets very complicated, according to Chris Wolf, infrastructure and virtualization analyst at The Burton Group.

And while the rush into virtualized desktop and device OS’s isn’t fully on yet (some of Fogarty’s aforementioned combinations aren’t even available or projected to be available), desktop virtualization was gathering its fair share of buzz at Interop, the somewhat stodgy IT conference geared towards networking professionals I headed out to last week. The conference even had a whole track day devoted to desktop virtualization. Just sample the topic list and you can tell this is a serious technology:

Methodology for evaluating your user requirements and determining which technologies and combined approaches are best suited for your users’ needs
A deeper understanding of the various approaches and architectures of the different desktop virtualization and application virtualization and streaming technologies
An independent look at the top desktop and application virtualization solutions

Gartner projects 50 million global end users on virtualized desktops by 2013, up from 1.5 million last year, and a $65 billion market. If VMware, Citrix and the rest of the pack are actually going to hit those targets, though, they need to refine their answers to the questions posed at Interop: What do enterprises need to jump into desktop virtualization? Who are the leaders and who are the hucksters? And what benefit, if any, will desktop virtualization actually provide the enterprise, particularly as it looks like projected cost savings might be harder to come by then expected.

In and round Interop, HP and Cisco wage a not-so-subtle war

Michael Morisy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:58:43 +0000

This week at Interop and beyond, the battle lines between Cisco’s and HP’s networking divisions were clearly drawn in black and white, and the future promises a long-drawn war between the former partners to win the hearts, minds and wallets of networking professionals.

The most visible sign that the two competitors are willing to play hardball wasn’t on the showroom floor at all: Both giants held their respective partner conferences April 26 – 28th, with Cisco in San Francisco and HP right down the street from Interop at the Aria Resort and Casino.

IT pundits and partners said the message was clear: You are either HP or Cisco now, not both, particularly if you want to sell networking equipment. The was all precipitated by Cisco’s bold move into the server market and HP’s recently finalized 3Com acquisition. While the companies had been particularly complementary previously, they now were very much overlapping in product lines, which means a major restructuring in what kinds of deals can be made.

The heat has spilled over onto the Interop show floors: This year, likely due to acquiring 3Com and any Interop reservations they had, HP had not one but two giant show floor presences, one of which was right next to Cisco. I actually sat amidst a posse of HP executives during the keynotes, who not-so-quietly whispered “Bullshit” during the presentation by Cisco’s Brett D. Galloway. Let’s blame it on the Vegas mentality, but it seemed like the group was two slides away from throwing tomatoes.

I spoke with Nick Lippis, of Lippis Report fame, for his take on the situation and he said that HP faces some big challenges entering Cisco’s turf, but they also have some large advantages regarding strong existing channel and supply chain partnerships that span their networking, server and printer lines, which can translate into a lower acquisition cost and the ability to corral fence sitters into their camp whether they want to or not.

“It’s going to be very difficult for a channel partner to support both Cisco and HP,” he said. But with Cisco retaining a large market margin – about $40 billion to HP’s $5 billion, according to Lippis – and a strong technical edge, the two companies will have very different messages to bring to the market.

Peek in on Interop’s NOC and browse what your peers are browsing

Michael Morisy — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 22:17:50 +0000

I snuck over to the Interop NOC today and surreptitiously took some pictures of all the shiny monitoring tools on display, but it was all for naught. No, my camera wasn’t confiscated. Splunk, which provided the most interesting visualizations, went ahead and posted a live streaming video of NOC activity, embedded here:

Watch live streaming video from splunk at livestream.com

So far, nothing too lurid or surprising, but maybe you’ll spot something.

What recession? Interop: Las Vegas sees paid conference attendance spike 30%

Michael Morisy — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:32:53 +0000

When I spoke with Lenny Heymann, general manager of Interop, he was very conservative in predicting event turnout, saying Interop 2010 was “going to be a little smaller than last year’s” conference. Maybe he was just being modest, because once the crowds swelled in, the show was plenty busy.

Several analysts, journalists and attendees all told me that numbers seemed as high or higher than last year’s Interop (I didn’t attend), but press relations for the show said final numbers would not be available until after they closed up shop, sensibly enough. They would, however, part with one statistic: Paid conference attendance was up 30% over last year, which would (as best I can tell) put conference attendance at around 1,900 people. Keep in mind, conference attendance is a fraction of total attendance since a lot of people just browse the show floor or are exhibiting at the show themselves.

According to the EEIAC (an independent event attendance auditor), last year’s event saw a total of 1,478 conference attendees (not including who just visited the expo floor, which is free), which just over half the previous year’s attendance at 2,846 (Source PDF ).

Cisco’s quiet 122nd acquisition set the stage for CleanAir announcement

Michael Morisy — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:37:39 +0000

Cisco’s been on an acquisition tear throughout most of the recession (See the complete list), but the seeds of today’s CleanAir announcement date back to 2006, when Cisco announced a partnership with a little known company called Cognio, which had only begun shipping their breed of Wi-Fi management software the spring before.

But that was just the start to what would turn into a beautiful friendship. The next year, Cisco was so happy with the results it announced it would go on to acquire Cognio, with Cisco’s Brett Galloway saying:

“Wireless spectrum is a strategic asset for our customers, and its management is key to the robust delivery of mobility applications,” Galloway said. “Cognio’s innovation in spectrum intelligence will help ensure Cisco continues to differentiate our ability to deliver our customers rich and dependable end-user mobility experiences.”

Yankee Group senior vice president Zeus Kerravala said that acquisition was part of the turning point for Cisco to move from “selling wireless stuff” to becoming a true mobility vendor.

As an aside, Brett Galloway was the Cisco executive who made today’s CleanAir announcement, too. While digging around, we also had a Cisco representative offer the following statement regarding what makes CleanAir better than standalone offerings, like Airmagnet or Cisco’s own Spectrum Expert:

While spectrum intelligence can be acquired in the form of tools like Spectrum Expert which are useful in the pre-deployment phase, the best solution is to have spectrum intelligence technology integrated directly with the infrastructure. The fully integrated Cisco CleanAir solution provides powerful features that are not available in Spectrum Expert such as 24/7 proactive monitoring of interference, spectrum security and performance alerts, remote management, and interference device location. And perhaps most importantly, integrated spectrum intelligence enables a new breed of RRM, which is able to understand and intelligently mitigate the impacts of interference.

There you have it: The long, relatively un-sordid backstory behind Cisco’s latest wireless defense mechanism. I’m meeting with Cisco again Thursday, so feel free to e-mail or tweet any unanswered questions you might have to me in the meantime.

Cisco’s CleanAir defends against WLAN-mutating microwaves, Bluetooth and more

Michael Morisy — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:16:37 +0000

In what may or may not have been a ploy to break the record for number of props used in an Interop keynote (a microwave, Bluetooth headset, mobile phone [those still exist?] and more all appeared), Cisco’s Brett D. Galloway (above, right) proudly announced the latest prong of Cisco’s Borderless Networks strategy: CleanAir technology (official release). CleanAir-embedded access points (APs) will connect with a WLAN dashboard to give networking professionals a quick overview of where their APs are deployed and, more importantly, what else is laying around in their offices, such as rogue Wi-Fi devices, unsecured wireless routers or even authorized devices that just happen to be knocking out an entire department from being able to sustain a reliable wireless connection to the wireless network.

In short, the new toolset is everything you need to be your own network toxic defender.

The visual dashboard can also overlay an office blueprint so that, for example, you can see who exactly decided it would be a good idea to install that X10 wireless camera to catch who was eating all the popcorn (Cisco’s example, not mine). The dashboard also shows a barometer that indicates, on a scale of 1 to 100, how relatively healthy your wireless network is, a nice feature for proving to your local pointy-haired boss that you’re doing your job.

The tool is also integrated with some smart technology that automatically helps your APs route around problem areas to reduce interference, and since the technology is on a seperate chip, Cisco claims it won’t degrade overall network performance.

Wireless mapping tools are nothing new (Airmagnet is one, for example), but anything officially built into the Cisco fold has a strong market advantage, and it looks like the engineering team there has done a lot of work to make the process as intuitive and friendly as possible.

But really, did they need the bright red barometer?

Whether you’re trekking out into the Las Vegas sands or watching safely from your home base, IT Knowledge Exchange has you covered: The Enterprise IT Watch Blog is teaming up with SearchNetworking.com to bring you the most comprehensive Interop coverage. Follow Interop coverage on the IT Watch Blog or check out SearchNetworking’s coverage on the Network Hub. If you’re in Las Vegas yourself, shoot me an e-mail at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com: I’d love to hear what you’ve learned, seen or heard, and we have plenty of free swag to give away to IT Knowledge Exchange members!

Avaya’s Kevin Kennedy: SIP is the New IP

Michael Morisy — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:34:49 +0000

Kevin Kennedy, Avaya’s president and CEO, said IP was able to consolidate or supersede dozens of other protocols like PUP and RIP and that the time was soon coming for SIP to take the same route, but a layer higher. Avaya was pushing SIP as the protocol of choice for voice, video, Instant Messaging and other types of communication, and Kennedy gave six core reasons why SIP was the right rule to ring them all:

1) Infrastructure and Dial Plan Consolidation

2) Applications Control Network Delivery

3) Multi Modal

4) Session Level Granularity

5) Comprehends Communications as a Conference

6) Directory Confederation Enabled

And while I certainly believe consolidation, standardization and interoperability are beautiful things, Avaya has an uphill battle, at least in the short term. SIP has been over-promised for years and years, while even full SIP compliance doesn’t guarantee the communications interoperability and unification Kennedy gushed about.

Still, it’s a beautiful dream and Avaya has big enough guns that it’s entirely possible, particularly as enterprises look to speed up deployments while reducing complexity.

Curt Franklin has a good write up on the rest of Kennedy’s Interop keynote if you’re interested in what you missed or want another perspective.

This year, Interop Las Vegas is for the hungry

Michael Morisy — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:08:58 +0000

With a few exceptions, conferences are growing smaller: Travel budgets are slashed, work loads are up, and companies are trying to “go green,” with or without a pricey Cisco telepresence get up (although I secretly think that last is still less about Mother Earth and more about Father Dollar). Interop is no exception, a fact Lenny Heymann, general manager of Interop, addressed head on when I asked him about it, admitting the “event is going to be a little smaller than last years’,” which itself was a smaller event.

But he said that, in a way, that’s OK. “We’re tracking really well in terms of the key vendors,” he said. “The people who still come are the ones … who are going to be buying things, the ones who want to get something done.”

Show attendees I spoke with yesterday echoed Heymann’s sentiment: This year’s Interop isn’t about ogling booth babes while getting your booklet stamped to win a Wii; it’s shaping up to be a more focused, get-what-you-need show where attendees are coming to learn, to meet potential partners, and to get things done.

“It used to be companies just sent people because everybody sent people,” an attendee told me yesterday as we were registering. “Now, you really have to justify it, but a lot of people are still coming, and they’re coming with a clear agenda.”

And as another attendee pointed out, it might be leaner but it’s still a much more happening event than SUPERCOMM, which is now as lean as it can get: Cancelled.

Whether you’re trekking out into the Las Vegas sands or watching safely from your home base, IT Knowledge Exchange has you covered: The Enterprise IT Watch Blog is teaming up with SearchNetworking.com to bring you the most comprehensive Interop coverage. Follow Interop coverage on the IT Watch Blog or check out SearchNetworking’s coverage on the Network Hub. If you’re in Las Vegas yourself, shoot me an e-mail at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com: I’d love to hear what you’ve learned, seen or heard, and we have plenty of free swag to give away to IT Knowledge Exchange members!

Interop 2010: Is there an IT guy in the house?

Michael Morisy — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:20:31 +0000

Maybe it was the equivalent of having a heart attack at a cardiology trade show, but a number of Interop’s early bird registrants found themselves on the receiving end of an IT snafu: Attendees were told to “Wait just 10 more minutes” as they were left to stare at an endlessly looping registration screen.

One bemused attendee quipped, “Is there an IT guy in the house?” 10 minutes later, there was still no sign of advancement as the self-service terminals, and the line continued to grow.

Eventually the aforementioned smart aleck begged off: He was on duty in a exhibitor support role to quietly show off his wares, and he had meetings to attend. Things proceeded relatively smoothly thereafter, with at least one more outage but few vocal complaints. Early birds might get the worms, but they also get the bugs, too.

Whether you’re trekking out into the Las Vegas sands or watching safely from your home base, IT Knowledge Exchange has you covered: The Enterprise IT Watch Blog is teaming up with SearchNetworking.com to bring you the most comprehensive Interop coverage. Follow Interop coverage on the IT Watch Blog or check out SearchNetworking’s coverage on the Network Hub. If you’re in Las Vegas yourself, shoot me an e-mail at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com: I’d love to hear what you’ve learned, seen or heard, and we have plenty of free swag to give away to IT Knowledge Exchange members!

Interop Las Vegas: 6 can’t-miss sessions for your itinerary

Michael Morisy — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:30:48 +0000

Now that everyone has checked in (well, almost everyone) and is finishing up on their conference preparation, it’s about time you started finishing up that itinerary. You can read about what Interop General Manager Lenny Heymann said regarding this year’s hot topics (virtualization, cloud computing and networking fundamentals) but if you’d like an outside perspective, the SearchNetworking staff did some great preview interviews (all available on their Interop Las Vegas landing page) and came away with 6 clear-cut recommended sessions, straight from the organizers themselves. You’ll have your itinerary done in no time.

Doug Washburn on the Data Center

Sue Fogarty, SearchNetworking’s editorial director, spoke with Doug Washburn, Forrester Research analyst and chair of Interop’s Data Center track.

Washburn’s top recommended sessions about the data center include:

“Bridging the C-suite gap: How to build the business case for data center transformation”
“Planning for server, storage and network convergence”
“How data center managers should evaluate the cloud and cloud-like efficiencies”

Read the full interview with Doug Washburn

Jim Metzler on the Networking Track

Shamus McGillicuddy, SearchNetworking’s news editor, interview Jim Metzler about the networking track he is running this week. In particular, Metzler, of Metzler, Ashton & Associates, explained the importance of three new sessions he has introduced:

“Why Networking Must Fundamentally Change”
“Breakthrough Network Technologies”
“Advances in Network Management”

Read the full interview with Jim Metzler

Have any other recommendations? Leave them below in the comments, e-mail me at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com, or reply to me at @Morisy on Twitter.